The inspirations and origins for our stories.

It came from Samuel Chapman

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Samuel Chapman’s story “The Foaling Season” was published in Metaphorosis on Friday, 1 June 2018. I came up with the world of Locksgrove during a worldbuilding exercise with friends. It’s based on revolutionary Haiti, with Dominic L’Escalier a stand-in for Toussaint L’Overture. Reynard aux Chatillon was a later addition, partially based on Jiro Horikoshi, the Japanese aircraft engineer whose dilemma is chronicled in Hayao Miyazaki’s film The Wind Rises. Reynard and Jiro share the same …

It came from Gloria Wickman

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Gloria Wickman’s story “Chasing the Light” was published in Metaphorosis on Friday, 25 May 2018. I wrote “Chasing the Light,” somewhat differently from my typical process. Usually I tend to heavily outline and focus on plot and characters before anything else. But this time I focused much more on the emotional beats and tone of the story and then the plot developed from those feelings. There were two main sources of inspiration for the story. …

It came from David Hammond (again)

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David Hammond’s story “Suzy’s Friend” was published in Metaphorosis on Friday, 18 May 2018. My family and I were staying in a small cabin in Shenandoah National Park. After dinner, despite having hiked most of the afternoon, and despite the fog, I decided I would go on my usual after-dinner walk and listen to my usual podcasts, damn it. I began walking south along the Appalachian Trail and listening to This American Life. In this …

It came from Kathryn Yelinek (again)

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Kathryn Yelinek’s story “On the Scales of Dragons” was published in Metaphorosis on Friday, 11 May 2018. I’m honestly trying to remember what inspired this story. Perhaps my recollection is faulty, but I remember coming home from World Fantasy 2014 with the idea for a dragon-library. Perhaps I got the idea while attending a panel? I can’t remember. But the idea for a dragon-library stuck, and then it was a matter of trying to make …

It came from Adan Berkowitz

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Adan Berkowitz’s story “Calm Folk, Come Forth” was published in Metaphorosis on Friday, 4 May 2018. The story originally began as an old idea I had kicking around about “The Lazarus People,” which was about the rise of a technologically advanced people who augmented themselves to live forever. I couldn’t think of anything especially interesting to do with the concept, so I stuck it away in the back of my mind. Later, I had a …

It came from Tim McDaniel

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Tim McDaniel’s story “Koehl’s Quality Impressions” was published in Metaphorosis on Friday, 27 April 2018. Ghosts are a fascinating topic. I can’t say I believe in them, and yet there is a smudge of doubt; some of the stories are not easy to dismiss. But if ghosts really do exist, what could they be? The idea that they are conscious entities seems nightmarish and unfair to me – can you imagine wandering around an old …